Looking back on 2025 by an iOS app developer
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As 2025 comes to an end, looking back, it was a year of many changes. It's been two years since I transitioned to my current position, our team structure has expanded, and we've worked on improving the development flow. From the perspective of an iOS app developer, I'll reflect on a year that marked a significant turning point for Apple platforms, including the major version jump to iOS 26 and the first design overhaul in 12 years.
iOS/Android App Development
At work, I continued to be in charge of maintenance and new feature development for native iOS/Android apps. For Android, I mainly worked on UI implementation using Jetpack Compose and improving existing code, but in this article, I'll focus on iOS and introduce several particularly memorable topics.
On June 9, 2025, at WWDC 2025, a change in naming convention was announced, with the next version being called iOS 26. The version incrementation that had continued since iPhone OS 3 was stopped, shifting to year-based versioning. This unified the various versions across different operating systems, bringing iOS in line with other Apple platforms like macOS, watchOS, and tvOS.
Major topics this year included "The arrival of iOS 26 and Liquid Glass design," "CocoaPods becoming read-only and preparation for SPM migration," and "Resolving Excluded Architectures issues."
The arrival of iOS 26 and Liquid Glass design
iOS 26, announced at WWDC 2025, featured the first design overhaul in 12 years since iOS 7. A new design language called "Liquid Glass" was introduced, incorporating translucent, glass-like visual effects inspired by visionOS throughout the system UI.
This design change significantly impacted existing custom UI components. Apps that customized system components like navigation bars and tab bars needed adjustments to adapt to Liquid Glass. Discussions about Liquid Glass adaptation are still ongoing within our team as we search for ways to refresh the design without compromising user experience.
Adaptation to Liquid Glass will need to be resolved by the next major update, making it one of the big initiatives for 2026.
Another significant change was the release of external App Store alternatives due to DMA (Digital Markets Act) compliance. Personally, I believe this poses high security risks, but I'll be keeping an eye on future developments.
CocoaPods becoming read-only and preparation for SPM migration
One of the biggest challenges in 2025 was the migration to Swift Package Manager (SPM) due to CocoaPods Trunk becoming read-only. After serving as the standard for dependency management in the iOS community for many years, CocoaPods decided that new pods could not be added after December 2, 2026, due to maintenance issues, leading many projects to consider migrating to SPM.
Finding an alternative to cocoapods-keys, which was used for managing confidential information like API keys, was particularly troublesome. Since SPM doesn't offer a similar feature as standard, we researched multiple options like Arkana and Swift Confidential, evaluating the pros and cons of each.
While we've created a roadmap for migration, we're still struggling with how to manage confidential information. We aim to complete the SPM migration plan by December 2026, when CocoaPods Trunk becomes read-only.
Resolving Excluded Architectures issues
Since 2024, we've been troubled by issues related to Excluded Architectures settings in Xcode 16 (iOS 18) and later. With this setting, there were bugs causing freezes when displaying SFSafariViewController or UIImagePickerController, and maps would turn completely red when displaying MapKit.
What made the problem more complex was that Swift Package Manager wouldn't work properly with Excluded Architectures settings. This was caused by some third-party SDKs not supporting the arm64 simulator architecture.
After numerous adjustments, updating necessary SDKs, and considering alternatives, we finally managed to remove the Excluded Architectures settings. Resolving this issue enabled the migration to SPM.
Automating branch merging with GitHub Actions
Compared to before, our team has grown and the number of development branches has increased dramatically. Managing branches became complex as multiple feature developments progressed in parallel. In particular, manually merging multiple feature branches in stages was inefficient. Although no mistakes had occurred, it was only a matter of time before careless errors would happen due to manual execution.
To address this challenge, we built a system using GitHub Actions to automate the staged merging of branches. This improved team members' work efficiency and reduced the risk of merge errors.
App quality improvements
Following 2024, we continued to focus on improving app quality. We carried out steady improvement work including investigating and fixing memory leaks, analyzing and responding to crash reports, and removing old libraries.
For memory leaks in particular, we performed detailed analysis using Instruments, identifying and fixing leak locations one by one. We also reduced app size and improved maintainability by removing obsolete libraries.
Blog articles written on DevelopersIO
In 2025, I wrote 30 articles on DevelopersIO. Below are some articles that received particularly strong responses, categorized by topic.
Security and Development Environment
- I tried using 1Password Environments to manage .env files
- An article introducing how to securely manage .env files with 1Password's new feature. It was referenced by many developers after the npm package hijacking incident (sha1-hulud issue) that occurred the following week.
- Managing API keys with Arkana as an alternative to cocoapods-keys in Swift Package Manager
- An article examining alternative methods for API key management due to CocoaPods Trunk becoming read-only.
iOS Related
- Apple Pay button label text in Japanese changed in iOS 26.1
- An article investigating UI changes in iOS 26.1. I just recorded this change as a note, but it somehow gained a lot of page views.
- Preparing for iPhone 17 purchase! Converting physical SIM to eSIM on device
- An article summarizing the steps for converting from physical SIM to eSIM in preparation for purchasing the iPhone 17.
AI and Development Tools
- I don't understand Claude Code at all, so I tried developing an iOS app with AI only
- An article about attempting iOS app development using Claude Code to explore the possibilities of AI-driven development.
- Installing GitHub Copilot for Xcode
- An article introducing how to use GitHub Copilot as an extension for Xcode.
I've also posted many other articles about native app development, so please check them out here.
Outside of work
Our company is strongly recognized as "the AWS company." Working as a native mobile app developer in such an environment, and with many colleagues utilizing AWS, I decided to learn it myself.
As a stepping stone for AWS certification, and in anticipation of future AI utilization, I took and passed the "AWS Certified AI Practitioner (AIF-C01)" exam. It was a good opportunity to systematically learn the basics of cloud and AI.
I'm currently continuing to study for the "AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02)" and plan to take the exam soon.
Summary
Looking back at 2025, it was a year of tackling many challenges, including major changes to iOS 26, transitioning away from CocoaPods, and resolving technical debt. Particularly in the latter half of 2025, I was focused on specification adjustments and documentation creation, which was stressful as I couldn't do much programming.
For 2026, I want to ensure the completion of migration to Xcode 26 and from CocoaPods to SPM, while continuing to modernize and improve app quality. In my private life, I hope to work on developing a new personal app, focusing more on programming activities. I aim to make it a year of pursuing technical challenges and better app development.
